


saying no

by desastrista



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Patras Frees Its Slaves Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-10 23:41:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7866004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desastrista/pseuds/desastrista
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captive Prince Week Day 5 - Dispute</p>
<p>Slavery ends in Patras. Erasmus has to figure out how to be free.</p>
            </blockquote>





	saying no

**Author's Note:**

> A big inspiration for this fic was this one: http://hollowistheworld.tumblr.com/post/144537863453/erasmustorveld-and-number-1. 
> 
> Don't be fooled by the theme, this is mostly fluff.

Things were still the same. It was night. Erasmus lay in bed with Torveld. He rested his head against the other man’s chest, just as he had done so many times before. It was a comfortable, familiar setting. The only thing that had changed was that tonight, for the first time in a long time, he was wearing no gold. The cuffs and the collar he was accustomed to wearing were gone. 

Torveld had told him that he was free. Patras had ended slavery. Torveld had been one of the loudest voices supporting the King, his brother, on this change. Erasmus would no longer be a slave. 

But Erasmus had been a slave his whole life. 

“How do I be free?” he asked Torveld. 

Torveld was quiet for a moment. “I suppose I’ve never thought about it,” he finally admitted. “I think the most important part of being free is that you don’t have a master to listen to anymore. But I know you, Erasmus. You want to obey. You like to obey. And I think with being free, you have to learn to say no.” 

Erasmus crinkled his nose. The concept seemed strange to him. “What would I have to say no to?” 

“Have I ever touched you when you didn’t want to be touched?” There was a sudden urgency in Torveld’s voice. When Erasmus shook his head, Torveld said, half under his breath, “Well, that’s a relief.” He looked contemplative again. 

Erasmus found himself rolling his neck from side to side as he waited for an answer from Torveld. He had gotten used to the weight of the collar around it. It was strange to be without it. But Erasmus told himself the sensation would pass. He would adapt to this new role. He just had to listen to what Torveld said – he had to learn to say “no”. 

“I wonder if there was something I could do, get you practicing saying no,” Torveld mused aloud. “Get the cooks to only serve you the food you didn’t like?” Erasmus let out a huff of amusement, and Torveld stuck his tongue out playfully. “No, even if it was for your own good, I don’t think I could do that. Too mean-spirited. I’ll have to think of something else.” He closed his eyes, “Tomorrow. Good night, Erasmus.” 

“Good night,” Erasmus said. He closed his eyes to sleep. Perhaps tonight felt familiar, but tomorrow things would be different. Tomorrow he would learn how to be free. 

 

***** 

 

The next morning, as they were eating breakfast, Torveld described a new approach. 

“Now that you’re free, you have to decide who you want to be. If you hadn’t been a slave,” he asked, “What do you think you would have been?” 

Erasmus blanched. He’d never thought about that question before. “I’m not sure,” he answered honestly. “If you weren’t a prince, what would you be?” 

Torveld toyed wth his food for a moment. It was with a start that Erasmus realized that Torveld didn’t have an answer either. “I guess it’s a good thing I don’t have to find out,” he finally mumbled in response. “Unless something very bad were to happen to a number of my relatives, I think it’s safe to say that I will stay a prince for a while. But Erasmus, things are different for you. You were a slave. Now, Patras is ending slavery. You can’t be a slave anymore. But there are other options for you. What do you want to be? Who do you want to be?” 

Erasmus was quiet for a moment. “Those seem like awfully big questions,” he eventually sighed. 

Maybe that’s what freedom was, always having to answer big questions like that. It was an intimidating prospect. Erasmus wondered why Torveld had seemed so excited for him to be free. 

 

****** 

 

Torveld was still a Prince; he still had a number of important visitors he must attend to. Erasmus used to attend to Torveld and his guests when he had been a slave, but that practice was over now. Instead, Erasmus was to spend the day with the servants. He was still naturally shy and kept to himself for the most part. But he found himself watching the servants voraciously. They were free, he kept thinking to himself. They must know how to be free. If only they could teach him. 

Freedom still felt like this strange puzzle he had to solve. 

Later in the day, when Erasmus saw Torveld, the prince looked optimistic. “Ah, Erasmus,” he said. “I’ve thought of something. You always liked playing the kithara. You could always become a singer.” 

That was the first discussion of the issue that had made Erasmus smile. “Oh,” he said excitedly. “I would like that indeed. I love to play the kithara. I love to see how happy it makes people.” 

But evidently he had said something wrong, because Torveld just gave a small grimace. “I’m not sure,” Torveld said quickly, “That is altogether the best reason. I’ll keep thinking.” 

 

****** 

 

They visited the gardens the next day. Erasmus liked to see the flowers blooming, and Torveld suggested he could become a gardener. Erasmus made sure this time not to say that he liked the idea of planting flowers that would make other people happy. “The flowers are very beautiful,” he tried cautiously, and felt a small relief when Torveld merely nodded in response. 

Torveld arranged for the royal gardener to spend the day with Erasmus and show him what the job entailed. The gardener was a kind, older man who only smiled patiently whenever Erasmus fumbled. They spent the day visiting the various plants, pulling weeds, collecting seeds, and more. By the time work was over and the sun had set, Erasmus’s knees hurt, his hands hurt, everything hurt. Privately, he found himself thinking, he greatly preferred looking at the flowers to tending them. 

When Torveld asked him that night how the lesson had gone, Erasmus could only smile diplomatically. “Perhaps,” he said quickly, “I should keep looking.” 

 

****** 

 

Torveld suggested another approach the next morning. “Perhaps,” he said, as they were eating breakfast, “If you are going to train to be something else, you should think back to how you were trained to be a slave. What was it like?” 

Erasmus described his life as it had been in the gardens of Nereus and then in the Palace. He spoke of what he had been required to do, what he liked, what he disliked. He feared that he was rambling when Torveld started to frown. When Erasmus finally stopped, Torveld said, “But that’s horrible.” 

Erasmus, who remembered the time fondly, was slightly taken aback, although he tried to hide it. “What do you mean?” he asked. 

“Well, you,” Torveld blinked, as if himself unsure of the answer. “You were spending all that time just readying yourself to serve one person. You weren’t being yourself, you were being made for someone else.” 

It was Erasmus’s time to be confused. “But,” he couldn’t help but point out, “All my training, it never seemed to bother you before. You spoke so highly of it.” 

Torveld had nothing to say to that. 

A strange thought occurred to Erasmus. He had spent all his time thinking about how he must change now that he was no longer a slave. It had never occurred to him that perhaps the end of slavery would change Torveld too. 

 

******* 

 

Erasmus had been freed almost the full week before Torveld gave his last suggestion. “You asked me what I would be, if I wasn’t Prince,” he said, just as they were getting ready to retire for the night. Torveld was sitting on the side of the bed. “As Prince, my responsibility is to defend my kingdom and to lead my army. I think if I were not a Prince, I would be a soldier.” He looked contemplative for a moment, “It may not be a career you had ever considered, but you could be a soldier. It’s a good, honest living. And you would be serving your kingdom.” 

The thought made Erasmus go wide-eyed. He had been standing in the room, in the middle of changing. He toyed with his tunic for a moment as he considered Torveld’s words. Most of what he knew of battle came from Torveld’s accounts or the songs he had learned. It made the life of a soldier sound honorable, exciting, glorious. But he remembered what it had been like to see the battle at Ravenel. The smell of blood had been so heavy in the air. The screams had carried far on the wind. 

“No,” he found himself saying, “I know it means a lot to you, but I do not want to be a soldier.” The words spilled out from him all of a sudden, as if inside him a dam had burst. “I don’t want to be a gardener. I don’t even want to be a singer, not really. And I know I’m not a slave anymore and that I have to find something else to be, but I just – I don’t want to have to mold myself to be someone entirely new, not again. I just want to be Erasmus and to figure out what that means for myself.” He flushed. He hadn’t quite meant to say all that, and frankly he wasn’t sure where half of those words had come from. He wouldn’t have spoken like that a week ago. It would have been unimaginable to speak like that as a slave. 

Perhaps Erasmus had learned what it meant to be free without even realizing it. 

Torveld looked taken aback for a moment, but then he smiled. 

“I think you’re right, Erasmus,” he said slowly. “You asked me what it was to be free, but I think you figured it out for yourself. Although,” he added, a slightly mischievous tone in his voice, “I did tell you, you’d have to learn to say no first.” 

Erasmus let out a huff of laughter. Torveld was right. For the first time, he had told his old master “no.” He walked over to the bed and gave Torveld a quick kiss. 

“Are you ready to bed Erasmus, a free man?” 

Torveld drew him in for another kiss. “I’ve been ready to do that for a long time.” 

When Erasmus had been told he would be free, he thought freedom was something big and scary and uncontrollable that would change everything about him. And certainly some things would change – but not everything had to. Not if he didn’t want them to. He had a choice now. Freedom was about having that choice. Erasmus smiled to himself. He could get used to this.


End file.
